Contextualizing embodied remembering

Autobiographical narratives and multimodal communication

WithLucas M. Bietti

This chapter describes that Lucas M. Bietti examining how autobiographical remembering is shaped within the context of multimodal collaborations. Bietti provides a micro-qualitative analysis integrating the use of verbal and co-verbal resources while an individual remembers a specific, autobiographical episode in four different contexts of remembering over an eight-week period. He finds that changes in the autobiographical narrative of the same episode correlate with changes in the use of bodily resources. The autobiographical memory is a complex concept that attempts to capture the long-term and developmental functionality of human memory experience in everyday life. It is an integration of features and contents from long-term memory systems such as episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory. The narratives based on personal experiences are one of the most widespread cultural, cognitive and linguistic resources used to construct, communicate, and transform autobiographical memories. Furthermore, Bietti demonstrates the autobiographical narratives remaining stable across contexts and the use of bodily resources when describing the events.